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What We Do
Statement of Purpose
To eliminate fatal and serious injury crashes by counteracting the influence of Driver Conditioning .
Driver Conditioning is the underlying cause of nearly all vehicular crashes.
Driver Conditioning is the process through which drivers become conditioned to respond to traffic patterns and road conditions that remain consistent over an undefined period of time or distance.
Once a driver becomes conditioned to their driving environment, it is natural to lose focus on that environment and become susceptible to error.
Driver Conditioning causes or contributes to the following impediments to safe driving:
01
Intentional mental compromise
Driver purposely focuses on things [thoughts/visuals/audio] separate from their driving environment
02
Unintentional mental compromise
Driver involuntarily/subconsciously focuses on things [thoughts/visuals/audio] separate from their driving environment
03
Cognitive disengagement
Near-total loss of environmental awareness
04
Tunnel vision
Non-medical—complete loss of vision outside a small area of focus in the center of vision
05
Development of life-threatening habits
A. driving under the influences of alcohol or drugs;
B. ignoring seatbelt usage;
C. looking once in each direction before entering or crossing a roadway;
D. rapid lane-change without visual clearance or signaling; and,
E. many more.
Focus
DCCI works to identify the underlying cause of crashes influenced by the effects of Driver Conditioning and provide recommendations to counteract that influence, thereby reducing the risk of fatal and severe injury crashes.
Our primary focus is to stop recurring crashes at high-accident locations (HALs). However, analysts can proactively apply the same preventive evaluation and subsequent modifications to prevent collisions at newly constructed or modified locations and locations with minimal crash occurrence.